Bill would ease state timber rules

SACRAMENTO -- A bill making it easier for private landowners to harvest timber is causing a stir locally, as a divided Board of Supervisors declined this week to weigh in on the forest legislation.

Being aired Monday in the Assembly's Natural Resources committee, the bill expands the acreage for nonindustrial timber harvests from 2,500 to 15,000. It also establishes standing forest management plans, which critics say would make it difficult to remove lands from future timber production.

"I think it's very critical to keep the maximum at 2,500," said Supervisor John Leopold, adding that Santa Cruz County is unlike the state's northern forests, which appears to be the target of the bill. "They have 15,000 of lots of things that we don't have."

On Tuesday, Leopold proposed having the county Board of Supervisors to write a letter to the county's legislative delegation, asking it to oppose AB 904. After Big Creek Lumber and the Farm Bureau of Santa Cruz County objected, the board tabled Leopold's request with a 3-2 vote.

Leopold said he wants to see the Santa Cruz Mountains carved out from the bill, and said he may bring the issue back to the board at a later date. Only Supervisor Bruce McPherson joined him in Tuesday's vote, with others saying it was premature to weigh in.

But a former supervisor, Assemblyman Mark Stone, D-Scotts Valley, who sits on the Natural Resources committee, said he will oppose the bill as currently written. It is one of several controversial forestry management proposals being heard Monday.

Bob Berlage, communications director for Big Creek Lumber, said responsible forestry is a way to preserve the rural character of the county's mountainous regions.

Without a way to capitalize on their property, he said landowners might look to other ways to find returns on their investment, including development.

"This is not a bill about logging in perpetuity," Berlage said. "This is about conservation forestry in perpetuity."

By filing a standing timber management plan, landowners would simply have to file less formal notices of intent to harvest. Otherwise, Berlage said, they would have to spend $20,000 to $40,000 for each new harvest plan.

Berlage pointed out that nothing in the bill supersedes existing laws, either local rules against clear-cutting or state and federal laws on everything from clean water to endangered species. Some environmentalists don't want to see their influence over future harvesting curtailed, he added.

"They want the landowner to spend way more money on repetitive permits," Berlage said. "They want multiple bites at the apple because their objective is to end timber harvesting."

The bill is sponsored by Natural Resources Chairman Wes Chesbro, D-Arcata, who hails from a sparsely populated region where timber production is a crucial industry. But the bill's critics say a line has always been drawn between how timber is harvested there and what happens here.

"We have over the years been able to distinguish timber harvesting in this suburban environment from what goes on in the North Coast of California," said county Treasurer Fred Keeley, a board member of Sempervirens Fund and former assemblyman. "My sense is Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties should retain this existing exception."

The bill is causing a split among traditional allies. Some environmentalists oppose it, but with cash-strapped conservation groups increasingly turning to timber harvests to generate funds, many are sitting on the sidelines of the debate. Others have thrown their support behind the bill.

"It has the potential to be beneficial to Santa Cruz County," said Terry Corwin, executive director of the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County.

The Land Trust manages the Byrne-Milliron Forest partly through proceeds from timber production, and is part of a coalition preserving 8,000 acres of North Coast timberlands formerly owned by Cemex Corp. Plans for that property include both public access and timber production, and it appears to be the main local property impacted by the bill.

Other groups, such as the Save the Redwoods League and Sempervirens Fund, have not weighed in. Local enviros, including Sempervirens board member Kevin Flynn, San Lorenzo Valley Water District consultant Betsy Herbert and Central Coast Forest Watch's Jodi Frediani, opposed the current version.

"We're reducing the ability of [timber harvest] neighbors to have their concerns addressed, and that's genuinely wrong," Frediani said.

She added that plans under the 2,500-acre max aren't being managed properly, because long lags between initial approval and harvest have led to disregarded requirements and lax oversight.

"Why would you expand it and not correct the loopholes that exist in the current program?" Frediani said.